And I don't even need to look at the front of it to know that it's the hottest fucking thing I've ever seen.  The way the skirt skims over her curves, caressing her ass like it was made for her, makes me crazy.

My cock stirs.

I'm at an afternoon tea, in a room filled with people I should care about impressing -- and I'm getting a boner looking at Belle's ass.

The problem is that Belle has been avoiding me for the past few days.  I swear she's doing it on purpose, making sure we're never in the same room together for more than a few minutes.  Last night at the club, I could have gone home with the Lara twins.  I should have gone home with them, fucked my brains out until they erased every thought of Belle from my head.

That would be the smart thing to do.  Instead, I jerked off, thinking about Belle.

And now, seeing her here, all I can think about is yanking that far-too-appropriate skirt up around her waist and coming all over that perfect ass of hers.

Belle finally half-turns toward me, her eyebrows raised.  "Oh?" she asks, holding a teacup to her perfectly glossed lips.  "I wasn't aware you needed my attention."

The way she speaks is laden with meaning, her words practically dripping with innuendo.

"I think you're mistaken," I say softly, my words barely audible.  "It's the other way around.  You need my attention."

Belle brings the tea cup to her lips, slowly taking a sip, her eyes trained on mine as she swallows, then licks her lips.  The gesture is subtle, yet somehow the most sexual thing I've ever seen.

She glances down toward my cock, where my growing hardness is evident, and then back up at me.  "You're lying, Your Highness," she whispers, then straightens.   Her expression changes to a professional one as an older man in military regalia walks toward us with his wife on his arm.

“Miss Kensington,” I say, my voice excessively formal, while I’m willing my hard-on to deflate, “May I introduce the Count and Countess of Etier?”

Belle smiles – primly and properly.  She laughs at one of the Count’s jokes, and talks with the Countess about gardening or something.

I’m not paying a damn bit of attention to what we’re talking about, because the only thing I can think about is Belle’s ass.

“I don’t need your attention,” she whispers, as soon as they leave.  “Or your fingers.  My fingers have been working just fine.”

I nearly spit out my tea.  The image of Belle in bed, with her perfect legs spread, her fingers inside her wet pussy flashes into my head.  When I glance at her, she smiles smugly.

I notice someone else important walking toward us, so I whisper in her ear quickly, before they arrive.  “You should touch yourself in front of me,” I say, my voice barely audible.  “Since we both know you’re thinking about me when you do.”

Belle’s face flushes, but she looks straight ahead, smiling appropriately as another dignitary approaches us.  “Oh, I think that might be arranged, Your Highness,” she says, her voice sweet.  “But only if you beg.”

From the corner of my eye, I glance at her as I greet yet another person of interest to my father.  When Belle catches my eye, she smiles.

Little Miss Do Gooder has more of a backbone than I thought she did.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Belle

I wipe a towel across my forehead – navy blue monogrammed with the royal crest in gold stitching.  Even the towels in the gym are excessively formal, perfectly placed in a little pyramid on an antique table against the wall.

Five miles on the treadmill.

That’s what it took to run off the frustration caused by seeing Albie today at tea.  Five miles a day for the past few days, since we got back from the summer estate.  If I keep this up, if I keep running until I’m nearly exhausted in order to run off the overpowering attraction and sexual tension between us, I’m going to be a damn marathoner.

I could go back to the States, I think as I walk back toward my room.  I could return to the States and put all of this behind me.

“Isabella,” my mother calls, her voice echoing down the hallway.  I turn around to see her walking toward me in a tailored silk suit and a matching pillbox hat.  “I texted you, but you didn’t respond.”

“My phone is in my room,” I say.  “I was in the gym.”

“There’s a foundation,” Sofia says, handing me a packet of paperwork.  “I’d thought you might like to be involved with it.”

“What is it?”

She waves her hand dismissively.  “Reading?” she asks, absently, pulling out her phone and scrolling over the screen.  “Or refugees?  I’m really not sure.  There’s a packet of information.  Charity is your thing.  You should organize a dinner, fundraising or something.  You can use your time at the summer estate to plan something for the fall, when we return to the palace.  Nothing that takes attention away from the wedding, of course.”

“Fundraising isn’t really my thing, mother,” I say, but she’s looking at her phone, her brow furrowed.  And you're assuming I'm going to stay until Fall.

“I have to run, I’m afraid,” she says.  “There’s a crisis with the event tonight.”

“What event?” I ask, as she draws me in, kissing my cheek.

“Read the packet, darling,” she says.  “I’m late.”  I roll my eyes as she starts to walk away.  Then she pauses, turning back to me.  “Oh, I almost forgot to ask.  How are you adjusting to everything?”

“Fine,” I lie.  Thinking about returning home is what I deliberately leave out.  Except the problem is that I’ve been living overseas the past two years, so I'm not exactly sure where home is anymore.

“Protrovia will grow on you,” she says.  “Albert is taking care of you?”

My face flushes and I cover my reaction with a fake cough.

Albie is not taking care of me, I think.  I’ve been taking care of myself.  Every night.  While thinking about how I’d like Albie to take care of me.

“Yeah, sure,” I say, my voice faltering.

She walks toward me, and speaks, her voice quiet.  “Alexandra has…problems,” she says.  “Albert can show you around.  He was in Afghanistan, you know.  He’s more serious now.  Responsible.”

I choke back a laugh as my mother whirls around without waiting for a response from me.  She walks down the hallway, every step of hers purposeful.

When I reach my bedroom, I pull open the door and toss the packet of paperwork on the desk.  I know my mother wants me to be part of a foundation, to take some kind of administrative or public relations role -- whatever it is that a princess does.

But that’s just not me.

I’m hands-on, which is why I went to Africa in the first place.  She totally doesn’t understand that.

I’ll read the paperwork later.

I turn, my eyes resting on the box in the middle of the bed – bright pink paper embossed with a subtle floral pattern and tied with an ornate gold fabric ribbon.  There’s no card attached to the outside, so I sit on the edge of the bed, pulling the ribbon to open the box lid.

It’s probably a gift from my mother, a bribe to follow the not-so-subtle order to get involved with the foundation.  The thought makes me immediately annoyed.  If my mother thinks I can be bribed with some stupid gift, she’s mistaken.

I pull off the lid of the box, expecting to see a purse or new pair of shoes, something my mother thinks someone my age would like.

It’s definitely not a new purse or a pair of shoes.

I stare at the inside of the box, blinking several times to make sure I’m actually seeing what I’m seeing.

That prick did not do this.

I look at the contents of the box, unsure whether to be appalled or amused.  A notecard is perched on top of a small pile of sex toys, and I set it on the bed beside the box.  It’s no mystery who left me this ridiculously inappropriate gift.